Thursday, July 10, 2014
Microsoft's Nadella To Announce Company Sharkeup

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent an email to all employees today outlining the company’s ambitions and changes that are coming during for new financial year.

"At our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more," Nadell wrote.

Previously, Microsoft had been described as a "devices and services" company. Now the company's strategy will focus on mobile and cloud. "We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more," Nadella said.

However, Nadella clarified that the company's new strategy will not impact products like Xbox, Surface, and Windows Phone just yet.

"We are fortunate to have Xbox in our family to go after this opportunity with unique and bold innovation," says Nadella. "Bottom line, we will continue to innovate and grow our fan base with Xbox while also creating additive business value for Microsoft." On the Surface side, Nadella name checks the Surface Pro 3 as an example of how Microsoft will build first-party hardware to boost the Windows ecosystem. "That means at times we'll develop new categories like we did with Surface. It also means we will responsibly make the market for Windows Phone, which is our goal with the Nokia devices and services acquisition."

Nadella is also planning to re-organize Microsoft’s various product teams and engineering processes to "be customer-obsessed, data-driven, speed-oriented and quality-focused." Part of that is an effort to remove some processes and have fewer employees focused on decisions. Another part is improving training and investments in having Data and Applied Science resources in each engineering group.

Nadella's message to Microsoft's employees comes shortly before Microsoft reports its latest financial results, and amid rumors the company is planning layoffs shortly.